The perfect way to orient yourself in Ho Chi Minh City is to start with a visit to the city’s most iconic sites. The old Saigon Post Office and Notre Dame Cathedral are the perfect locations to soak up the architectural masterpieces of this city. The Gothic-styled Saigon Central Post Office began its life in 1886 and was designed by Gustave Eiffel, who also designed the Eiffel Tower in Paris. It remains one of the country's most celebrated French colonial structures. Wander beneath the long, domed roof and past the French-inspired colonial maps flanking a portrait of Ho Chi Minh. It still operates as a post office today so you can even send a postcard home if you like. Across the road, the neo-Romanesque Notre Dame Cathedral, built between 1863 and 1880 by French colonists, is equally impressive. It is one of the few remaining strongholds of Catholicism in the largely Buddhist Vietnam. The name Notre Dame was given much later in 1959 after the addition of the Virgin Mary statue ‘Peaceful Notre Dame’. Locals claim the statue was seen to shed tears in October 2005, and while the Catholic Church of Vietnam have not affirmed this, many still flock to this statue in hope of witnessing a miracle.